is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Hush.
Hush.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that Caroleen and I had re-watched the silent episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called �Hush.� Along the lines of my observation that sometimes in order to get together with someone you like-like, you have to STOP TALKING, I�ve been thinking that it�s not just the words you say that get in the way, but the very act of articulation. (I�m sure I got this idea or something like it from reading Denise Riley�s utterly amazing, profound, and beautifully written book, Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect. You should read it.)
Anyway. �Hush.� And STOPPING TALKING. Sometimes, even the perfect thing said at the right time will be worse than silence, because it�s like a change of weather from silence to speech, and sometimes speech is interruption, even when it erupts out of silence (thus not seeming to have anything to �interrupt�). Sometimes it�s the context, not the content of speech that ends up mattering.
Of course silence can be awkward, which might make you want to interrupt it. Sometimes it feels as if speech is demanded of you, out of politeness or social convention. Or it seems as if speech will break through the unease in the room. However, if we�re talking about the situation of being with someone you like-like, then the awkwardness of silence will not be about words, but about the tension of what words couldn�t convey anyway.
Also, sometimes, when you feel compelled to speak, or not even compelled, but you do find yourself speaking, somehow, in the midst of a silent situation with someone you like-like, it will be because you are feeling something that you want to articulate. Something profound or heavy or moving or heartrending or joyous, what have you. (What have you?) You�ll think expressing it will make the moment more what it is. That nothing will have been communicated if you don�t say what it is you are feeling. But can you say what you are feeling? Will speaking do the trick? Or will you instead catch yourself clumsily letting spill from your mouth a string of words that, said aloud, sound as clich�s. It is difficult to speak feelings, you know? And so hard to judge whether speaking or not-speaking will have, in the end, said more, or said what you wanted to say.
So, people speak love all the time, in tiny ways (that end up being large). I�m not just talking about sitting on a couch with someone you like-like. It�s also part of daily life with our peeps, like when someone brings you the small spoon, or IMs you to say �are you coming home today?�, and by �home� she means not your house, but her house. These are statements of love made obliquely.
I�m not saying that you shouldn�t make statements of love directly. Sometimes your friends and lovers really need to hear them, and sometimes you really need to say them. And sometimes it's not about need, but desire. You want to speak. Why not use words to declare important things like love?
But sometimes you'd do just as well to sit with it (or him, or her) for awhile, without all the words.
Speaking of silence, I confused some women at the Alliance Fran�aise today. Remember how I mentioned last month that I was going to take a refresher course in French because I was having a hard time translating some abstracts (summaries of academic papers) written in French, and that just seems wrong (given that I write on French philosophers)? Alliance Fran�aise makes you take a placement exam if you aren�t starting at the very beginning. I didn�t have any problems with the written exam, so the women who were determining what level to place me in were certain that I spoke French. But then they started speaking to me, and could see that I understood them fairly well but couldn�t form the sentences to respond. They didn�t know what class to put me in.
It has always been like this. I�ve never had a problem with the structure of romance languages. So of course I remember how to conjugate verbs and use articles and interrogatives and pronouns, etc. But I can�t speak. It�s mysterious even to me. And so I�m forcing myself to do something I do not enjoy: conversational language class. Oh, the pain. Some of my silences in coming months will not be the pleasant ones that evolve out of the tension of sitting on a couch with someone you like-like. No, they�ll be the awkward humiliating silences of someone who can�t find the right sentence to say even when it�s part of an everyday class assignment. Maybe I'll figure out how to retie the severed strands in my brain linking reading to speaking. Until then, don't tell anyone.
1:55 a.m. - June 22, 2006
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